The Next Life Over
by Roland 'Jim' Lowery
Summary: When Nack takes on a job to find an ancient oracle, he ends up discovering something even more valuable . . . a missing piece of himself.
1. Living in the Past

The following short story is based on characters created and/or copyrighted by SEGA! Enterprises, DiC Productions, Archie Comic Publishers, Fleetway Comic Publishers, and the Taki Corporation. All other characters were created and copyrighted by Roland Lowery.

The author gives full permission to distribute this work freely, as long as no alterations are made and the exchange of monetary units is not involved. Any questions, comments, suggestions, or complaints should be sent to **esn1g(at)yahoo(dot)com**. Thank you.

* * *

"As I look back upon my life, I see that every part of it was a  
preparation for the next. The most trivial of incidents fits into  
the larger pattern like a mosaic in a preconceived design."  
-Margaret Sanger

* * *

**The Next Life Over** - Part One: _Living in the Past_   
by Roland Lowery

**Tuesday, August 9  
3233 AD**

_Nothing had disturbed the_ darkness within the Oracle's sanctuary for nearly a century, a situation that suited the sanctuary's current inhabitants just fine. They scuttled around in the dark corners and slithered amongst the cracks in the walls and dwelt silently in the eternal night of their world. These creatures had never seen the light, and so it was that when a blue, steady flame began to blaze in their midst, many of them had no idea what to do with themselves.

Nack The Weasel curled his lip up as he watched millions of cave crickets, blind snakes, and various other creatures of the underground scurry away from the light and heat of his windproof cigarette lighter. He was not a squeamish man, but the thought of all of those _things_ crawling across his fur in the dark made him shiver slightly.

Roughly shaking off the feeling, he stepped further into the sanctuary. Moss covered the walls of the stone structure, and besides the skittering of various insects, the only sound to be heard was softly dripping water. Nack had to proceed carefully, listen to every sound, and watch every step . . . as bad as the creepy crawlies were, the thought of a poison dart sticking into his neck after the careless tripping of a booby trap was even worse.

Fortunately for him, Nack had little to worry about. The structure was comparatively small to many of the caves and ruins he'd had to search through before and there were likely to be few - if any - traps. It never hurt to be careful, however . . .

Nack eventually stepped into the main chamber of the sanctuary and looked around to see what he could see in the dim globe of light his lighter cast. He then conducted a very thorough search of the room and found it to be lacking in any unusual surprises, like current residents with nasty dispositions and very sharp claws. With that finished, he proceeded to take apart the specialized backpack he was wearing and used the equipment to set up floodlights all around the chamber. When the entire place was lit up, he pulled a commlink from his utility belt and opened the channel.

"Oi, Jumpy," he yelled roughly into it, "getcher ass in here."

* * *

"Jumpy" was Nack's latest employer, a nervous looking young badger who was supposedly the leader of the local Freedom Fighter group. How he had gotten into that position, Nack would never guess . . . the boy was more tightly wound than the tension coil in a vibroblade.

But . . . it wasn't Nack's place to question such things. He was there simply to do the work his employer had asked him to do and collect his payment from said employer, no matter what Nack thought of them personally. With his part of the job done, Nack leaned back on the wall next to the chamber's entrance and waited while Jumpy took his time looking around.

The chamber was about twenty feet square, with a small dais sitting in the middle of it. A few steps led up to the top platform of the dais, upon which sat the item that Jumpy had hired Nack to find . . . the Opal Oracle.

It wasn't much to look at. In fact, Nack himself thought that the vines growing on the stone walls were more interesting to look at than a silly lump of green stone sitting on top of a pedestal. But Jumpy hadn't wanted the Oracle for its aesthetic value. According to an old text that he and his Freedom Fighting buddies had unearthed a while back, the Opal Oracle had the ability show a person whatever they needed to see . . . past, present, or future.

At first - Jumpy had told Nack despite Nack's general disinterest - they had thought it was just an old legend of no great import. Sort of a fairy tale to tell little children or perhaps a bit of mythology handed down over the ages. However, the text they had found was only around a century old at the most and talked of many prominent figures of the relatively recent past who had gone to see the Oracle many times. Spiritualists, scientists . . . everyone went to see the Oracle at one point or another.

Then, apparently, the Oracle just stopped giving out answers. It announced that it would enter a hundred year's sleep and would only awake when its services were truly needed again. According to Jumpy's calculations, that hundred year's sleep had ended and the Oracle would now be awake, ready to help in the fight against Dr. Robotnik.

It certainly didn't look like it was ready to do anything at all, though. Just a stupid old rock on a stick, Nack thought as Jumpy made his way up the steps.

Then, the rock spoke . . .

"**Jared Marsden Digger?**"

Jumpy froze where he was and looked at the stone in shock. It had not lit up or levitated from its platform, but the voice that spoke from within it had enough force to stop him cold. It sounded as if the weight of a million years laid behind that voice; countless lifetimes and beyond resounded from within it and echoed across the chamber walls.

"Y-yes?" the badger stammered.

"**Step onto the platform and touch the stone,**" the Oracle said. "**The answers you seek are here.**"

Taking up all the courage he had in his dumpy little body, the Freedom Fighter trudged up the remaining two steps and laid his hand on the opal. There was still no flash of light, no indication at all that anything had happened or was going to. Jumpy stood still for a few moments, then let his hand fall back to his side. His shoulders slumped and his face fell nearly into his chest.

"That . . . that wasn't what I wanted to know," he said, his voice barely a whisper.

"**No,**" the Oracle intoned. "**But it is what you _needed_ to know.**"

Jumpy nodded mournfully and started to turn away from the Oracle. "I understand . . . " he said, then made his way down the stairs. Nack was still waiting at the entrance. "Here," the badger said as he handed the bounty hunter a small data crystal. "The maps to the supply depot are all there. The access code, too. Thank you for your help."

With that, Jumpy left, dragging his feet in a daze. Nack shook his head and turned to follow him out.

"**Nack The Weasel?**"

The bounty hunter paused when the Oracle said his name. He turned back and sneered. "What," he said, "you want to read my palm, too? Tell me there's love and happiness in my future like a good little fortune cookie? Thanks, Rocky, but I'll make my own path, neh?" He dismissed the Oracle with a wave and started walking down the corridor again.

"**It's been almost ten years, Nack,**" the Oracle's voice followed him. "Don't you 'membuh me?"

The sudden shift in the voice caught Nack off guard, causing him to trip and almost fall flat on his face. He stopped walking and turned back to the Oracle . . . fear, confusion, and longing all momentarily fighting for control of his face.

"Don't you dare," he said. "Don't you fucking _dare!_" Pain and anger tore out of his throat as he turned back fully towards the chamber and stalked in, pointing a finger at the round stone. "You keep your Walkerdamned nose out of my business, or I'll bring this whole building down around you so fast, it'll make your builders spin in their graves! _Do you get me! DO YOU!_"

The stone stood passively accepting his threats, giving no indication if it was frightened or amused by them. It simply stood . . . waiting while Nack seethed, his breathing shallow and his teeth bared.

"Sweet _Walkers,_" the bounty hunter finally cried out after an interminable moment of silence, "what the hell do you _want_ from me?"

"**I want nothing from you,**" the Oracle replied evenly. "**I merely wish to present you with a gift.**"

"Why?" Nack asked, exasperated. "And what could you possibly give me that I can't get anywhere else?"

The Oracle seemed to be contemplating its answer for a few moments. "**You are a fascinating creature, Nack,**" it said after the pause. "**I can feel your mind, and I know that you are amongst the rare few in life who have no regrets . . . none at all for your actions, what you have done to and for other people, or what you have had to do to get what you want. No regrets . . . except one.**"

Nack ground his teeth together. He wanted to deny it. He wanted to say it wasn't true. But he couldn't. "And what," he managed to say through his teeth, "would that be?"

"**You already know,**" the Oracle replied simply. "**Now, step onto the platform and touch the stone.**"

He hesitated at the command, but only for a moment. With a few quick leaps, he cleared the steps and was standing on the topmost platform.

"All right, Rocky," he said as he tugged his right glove off and touched the top of the green stone. "But I don't know what you could possibly show me that has to do with-"

* * *

**Thursday, January 8  
3215 AD**

Nack felt the tears running down his face as he slowly came back to consciousness. It was actually rather surprising that he could tell they were tears, since he was completely covered from head to toe with rainwater. Which _wasn't_ surprising seeing as he'd spent the last two nights sleeping in an alleyway during a torrential downpour that never seemed to stop.

Even though he knew it was a futile gesture, he raised his hand to his face and fought to wipe the tears from his cheeks. They mingled in the rain that was still pouring down on him through the top of the plastiboard box he was currently calling home.

_Home_ . . . just thinking about it twisted his guts and made anger pour over his nerves like a thousand swarming bees. He'd had a real home once . . . or a real _house,_ at any rate. The only times it was truly a home was when his mother was there and his father wasn't, which wasn't often.

Nack snarled angrily at himself and threw aside the mental image of his father. As far as he was concerned, the man didn't exist anymore. In fact, Nack decided to further his mental discarding by daring to cast away one of his father's most prized possessions . . . his name.

Throughout all fifteen years of his life, Nack had been forced to listen over and over again how Grandfather Packleader had done _this_ and Great-Great-Great Grandmother Packleader had done _that_ and how every Packleader in the entire expanse of Mobian history had been the greatest and most powerful and influential being on the face of the planet and how Nack was not measuring up to the Packleader standard and how his father, the Great Head of the Packleader Family Itself, could not understand how a runt like Nack T. Packleader would ever amount to anything-

"_nnnnnnnnnnnnnnYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!_"

It felt as if his head was going to explode from all the pent up pain and frustration. His muscles were fueled with the hatred that could move mountains, destroy worlds, evaporate galaxies into nothingness. He stored up every bit of the power his hate could give him and used it to do what he would never have thought possible before.

He slammed his way out of his box and stood in the middle of the alleyway, screaming at the rain that fell all around him.

"_I . . . am . . . Nack . . . The . . . WEASEL!_" he yelled. "I _hate_ the Packleaders! I wish they'd _never_ existed! And I will outlive and outdo _everything_ that they have made and done! _I will destroy them! AAAAAAAARRRR!_"

Fury still ran through his veins, causing him to jump up and down and punch at the air. He railed against everyone and everything that had done him wrong, real or imagined. He cried and screamed and cursed the fate that had put him here until his throat was hoarse and his body ached from the exertion. He collapsed to the ground in a heap, tears and snot leaking out and getting washed away by the rain.

For two days straight he had woken to this same routine, and it seemed that he would be following it for some number of days to come if things didn't change . . .

Even with the blood pumping through his ears and sounding like a raging waterfall, Nack couldn't miss the sound of several people running through the alleyway adjacent to his own. The steady pounding of feet through the inch of water covering the ground was unmistakably that of people running away from something as quickly as possible.

Nack picked himself up on the ground and wiped his nose on his forearm. As miserable as he felt, his interest was still piqued. After a few second's wait, the group came into view as they passed the junction that connected his alleyway to the one they were running down.

Not a single one of them could've been over the age of twenty-five. Their clothing ranged from bright, flashy, and gaudy to plain, dirty, and well-worn. Every single one of them was as thin as a rail, looking as if they hadn't eaten in weeks. Some of them were toting handguns of various makes and models, and _all_ of them were carrying weatherproofed mini-computers.

As they passed, one of them looked to the side, saw Nack, and flashed him a wicked grin. Then . . . they were gone. Their receding footfalls were all that was left to prove that they had even truly existed.

Pulled out of his myopic state, Nack leapt to his feet and ran after them. He had no real idea of what he was doing or why he was doing it. All he knew was that he had to find out who these people were. He turned the corner just in time to see the last of the strange group turn down another alley about a hundred feet away.

Nack pumped his legs harder and sprinted forward, now filled with an even greater purpose. Yesterday he had explored that very alley, and he knew that it was a dead end. If these people were running away from someone or something, they would be trapped down there . . . he didn't know who they were or what they had done that they would have to run away, but he couldn't let them just be captured or killed because they'd made a stupid mistake!

He angled around the corner and came to a slippery and abrupt stop. The short alleyway was completely deserted.

"What the-!" Nack whirled around, searching every corner of the dead end to see if he'd missed something. The service door to the surrounding building didn't have an outside handle, and after pushing at it for a few seconds, he figured they couldn't have possibly gotten out that way. The walls had no fire escapes and were otherwise unscalable. They'd simply vanished.

While he was looking around a third time, an arm suddenly reached out from one of the walls and grabbed Nack around the neck, dragging him in. Everything went pitch black and several hands clamped around his mouth, stopping the yelp that had started to jump from his throat. His back was pressed hard up against a young woman's chest, his head held underneath her chin.

After a few intense seconds, a soft whine filled the air. Nack recognized it immediately as a Peacebot's hovercycle, slowly cruising down the alleyway that Nack had just recently occupied. After a few moments, the whine hit a higher pitch as the Peacebot picked up speed and moved on.

"Maze!" he heard one of the other Mobians whisper angrily. "Near bloody skullcapped! Who 'quaked?"

"None's 'quake," someone else said. "Zero Kelvin, neh?"

_What the hell are they_ talking _about?_ Nack thought as he listened to the unfolding conversation. None of it seemed to make any more sense than the first of it, even though the people talking seemed to follow it all quite well. But while he still couldn't understand it, he gradually became aware that the conversation had turned towards him.

"SFB!" one of them said. "Peepin' the domes here! Skullcap 'im, Breva!"

This last comment was accompanied by a sharp jab to Nack's ribs. He squirmed in the girl's grasp, who simply clamped down tighter. Even though she was so thin that he thought he could easily break her in two with his fingers, her muscles had suddenly turned into steely bands that held him tighter than any weightlifter could have done.

"Quiet!" she said, tilting her head forward so that her warm breath poured over his ears. "No one's going to hurt you . . . right-right, dackers? None's skullcappin'!"

A chorus of agreements - some more enthusiastic than others - filled the dark space. Nack relaxed. If these people were planning on doing something horrible to him, they were at least postponing it for the moment. Slowly, the hands left his mouth and the girl released his body from her death grip.

"Who . . . _are_ you people?" he asked as he turned to face them in the dark. Before anyone answered, bright light assaulted his eyes as two of the Mobians pulled open a trapdoor set in the ground.

With the darkness dispelled, Nack could now see that the girl who had been holding him was the one that had grinned at him as they had run past in the alleyway. A grey-furred ferret, she looked to be about three years older than Nack, and almost a full head taller.

"Hallo," she said as she held out her slender palm. "I'm Breva. We're the Hacker-Dackers."

Nack took her hand carefully and shook it. He expected to get his paw back, but Breva seemed to have other ideas. Still holding onto him, she pushed her way through the group and joined the several who had already jumped down through the hatchway. Nack clumsily landed on his feet, then looked around at his new surroundings with wonder.

The entire place was in complete disarray. Electronics equipment, computer parts, tools . . . every available surface from desks to tables to the tops of a row of coffee machines was covered with enough gadgetry to keep even the most rabid tech-geek busy for centuries. The building construction was much like that of a plascrete bunker, though it was hard to tell through all the diagrams, musical band posters, and computer printouts that covered the walls and much of the floors.

The Hacker-Dackers for the most part ignored Breva and her new little friend, all of them scurrying to their individual workstations to plug their micro-computers into the desktops or chattering constantly to each other in their strange lingo.

"Cozy, ain't it?" Breva asked. Nack could only nod as he gaped at everything with his wide eyes.

"This is MobiaNet," she replied to his unasked question. "The computers in this room are linked to every single computer matrix on the entire planet. We got the secrets that even the secret-keepers don't know about."

"Why?" Nack asked, finally able to control his voice well enough to talk.

"Freedom of information, kiddo. We dackers believe that everyone should get what info they need when they need it. Often, folks need the info, but don't know where to get it. So, we use the 'net to find these folks, and we send the info to 'em. Others, they can't get to the info they need 'cause there's all kinds of agencies and people and such that get in their way, either on accident or on purpose. We break the ice, we cut out the middle man, we get their info and we send it to 'em."

Feeling like an idiot, but not knowing what else to say, Nack repeated, "Why?" He then shook his head to clear it and added, "I mean, what's in it for you?"

Breva flashed her pointy-toothed grin at him. "We take our cut," she said. "Plenty of crooksters and data-thievies out there that steal from honest decent folks. We steal from them, take our cut, give the rest back to the community at large. And of course, there's the moral satisfaction of helping the world overall, kiddo."

Nack tried to find some trace of sarcasm in her last statement, but found none. He tried for a few moments to understand why anyone would do something just to help others, but decided it wasn't important at the moment. His immediate future amongst the living was, however.

"W-why are you telling me all this?" he stammered out.

The ferret leaned down and motioned for him to turn his ear to her. When he did so, she put her lips to his ear and said, "It don't matter if ya know, 'cause we're gonna _eat ya! RAR!_"

Nack squealed when he felt her little needle-sharp teeth lightly nip his ear. He jumped away and covered the ear with his free hand and tried to pull the hand that Breva was still holding away from her. He stopped when he noticed that almost everyone in the basement was either laughing at him or staring at him oddly.

"That wasn't funny," he muttered as he stepped back over to Breva, who was fighting to stop giggling.

"Ah, it was," she said when she finally calmed down and everyone else had gone back to their business. "But, tell me . . . where are ya livin' right now? Hmm? That old box I saw ya sittin' by in the alley? Who's takin' care of ya? Hell, kiddo . . . where were ya plannin' on gettin' your next meal from, neh? Have ya got any friends to help ya out?"

The young boy was silent, staring steadfastly at his own boots. His silence was all the answer Breva needed.

"Well, then," she said. "I'll ask ya this one . . . do ya got any family?"

Nack winced. He somehow knew that question would come sooner or later, and he had been hoping it would be later, if ever. He wasn't sure how he was going to answer . . . he didn't want to lie to Breva, and images of his parents kept popping into his head. He could see the picture and holo albums of his ancestors and distant relatives. He could hear the voices of his cousins, aunts, and uncles.

And slowly, gradually . . . they faded away. Evaporated.

"Gone."

Breva leaned down closer to Nack. "What's that, kiddo?"

"I said I don't have any family." He looked up and stared straight into her eyes. "I used to," he said in a firm, even tone, "but they're gone now."

A soft, understanding smile spread across Breva's face. Nack thought for a second that she looked just like an angel . . .

"Well, then, kiddo," she said as she put a hand on his shoulder, "_we're_ your family now."

* * *

**Wednesday, March 17  
3221 AD**

Nack The Weasel flew backwards through the holographic wall that masked the entrance to the Hacker-Dacker HQ and skidded across the ground in the alleyway outside. In seconds, he was back up on his feet and jumping for the real wall beside fake one. He unsheathed the small, retractable grappling claws hidden in his gloves and used them to climb up a few feet.

He waited several minutes, his ripcord muscles easily strong enough to keep him holding onto the wall for hours if need be. He didn't need to wait for hours, however, as his foe's patience was much shorter-lived than his own. A small ball of brown fur came bursting out from holo-wall, hit the ground, seemed to almost instantly transform into a highly-strung Mobian Chihuahua, and started running for the opposite wall.

Nack calmly pulled out a small device from his belt and activated it as the Chihuahua leapt up, rebounded off the wall, and jumped back with a dropkick aimed at the wall-crawling weasel. He didn't even make it halfway across the alley when Nack's device slung a shock-net from one end. The net, weighted by the batteries sewn into its lining, hit the attacker and wrapped around him, then sent a non-lethal electrical charge running through the metal fibers wound into its mesh.

Nack jumped down from the wall and stepped to the side as his attacker hit the wall, then the ground, in a heap. The weasel pulled the net off and began to stuff it in his longcoat pocket while nudging the unconscious figure with his titanium-toed boot.

"Shine, SFB," Nack said with a grin. _Wake up, shit-for-brains._

"Skullcapped," the Chihuahua replied in a whisper. _I'm dead._

Nack laughed. "En, 'cept skullcappin' vrai time I fate ya!" he said, swinging a kick at his friend's side.

Meth curled into a ball and rolled to the side to avoid the blow, then stood up and clapped Nack on the shoulder. "«You'll be old and grey before you could ever get finished with me, kiddo!»" he said. "«Just because you've gone and joined the bounty hunter guild, you think you're hot stuff, don'tcha?»"

"«Hell, Meth,»" Nack said as he put his arm around the Chihuahua's shoulder, "«you know damn well that I've _always_ been hot stuff. Now I've just got the credentials to show off to folks!»"

The two old friends laughed and joked while they made their way back down into the main MobiaNet chambers.

* * *

For six long years, Nack had lived with the dackers. They were his family, the only people he cared for in the world anymore. He had trained his body and mind alongside them and while he hadn't been very good at the computers, he had been their top bodyguard . . . taking care of them while they stole their way into buildings across the city to crack away at the information systems locked within. That position earned him a lot of respect from these people.

And more, he had their love. When he had agreed to join their group over half a decade before, he hadn't fully realized the meaning of Breva's words about family. He had thought of the dackers as little more than a street gang of sorts, simply watching each others' backs to keep from having to kill each other.

He knew better now. He knew how tightly knit together these people were, and how closely knit _he_ was to them. But now . . . now he was leaving them.

* * *

"«Sometimes I wish we'd never gotten that damn request,»" Meth said as they sat down at his workstation. "«You'd be staying with us if we'd just ignored it-»"

"«You couldn't just ignore it,»" Nack reminded him softly. "«That's not the dacker way, neh? Besides, when the guild says they need help, you know something bad for the whole world has to be in the works.»"

"«The truth doesn't take the sting away, kiddo,»" said Meth.

Nack shrugged. "«I know,»" he said. "«But it's not like I'm never gonna see you again. One of the reasons the bounty hunters wanted me to join was 'cause of my contacts here, so I'll probably be stopping by at least three or four times a week.»"

"«Those little gizmos you've been picking up over the years are more likely the main reason they want ya.»" Meth raised an eyebrow. "«Speaking of which, how's my fur look?»"

Nack looked at the small singe marks left on Meth's sides from the shocknet and had to stifle a laugh. "«Looks fine to me,»" he said. "«The color kinda reminds me of . . . 'burnt' sienna.»"

Meth stared at him with a longsuffering look, causing the weasel to burst into full laughter.

"«Yah, yah . . . laugh it up, shit-for-brains,»" Meth said with a mock punch at Nack's head, causing him to laugh even harder.

For the next few hours, the two of them talked about the years past while Meth rapidly typed away at his computer. They had spent a great deal of time just like this, talking back and forth while Nack watched the master hacker break through the thickest ice the 'net had to offer. It was a comfortable place in the midst of all the changes Nack was going through.

Eventually, a silence fell over them. Only the sound of Meth's keydeck could be heard as the general hub-bub of the MobiaNet crowd slid away and the dackers prepared for their morning naps.

Suddenly, Meth stopped typing and turned his chair to face Nack. He looked at the weasel with soulful eyes that were slightly misting up.

"«Breva would've been proud of ya, kiddo,»" he said after a long pause.

The silence settled over them again . . . Nack suddenly seemed to find his hands to be very interesting. "«Yah,»" he mumbled. "«Yah, I know.»" He looked back up, a tear running down his cheek. "«I miss her, Meth.»"

"«I do too, Nack. She was a wonderful lady . . . she didn't deserve-»"

"«Yah . . . well,»" Nack suddenly interrupted, collecting himself roughly, "«we all get a lot of things we don't deserve, don't we? Fact of life and all that shit. You gonna walk me out to my bike or what, old man?»"

Meth smiled sadly and nodded. "«Let's go,»" he said. "«You've got bad guys to catch.»"

* * *

**Sunday, February 25  
3224 AD**

It had come out of nowhere. Robots dropping from huge sky machines . . . Peacebots rejecting their programming and arresting citizens . . . the castle under siege . . .

Mobotropolis was in ruins, and Nack The Weasel was right in the middle of it, pushing his way through a crowd of people bound and determined to go the opposite way that he wanted to go.

"C'mon, folks!" he yelled out over the din that they were making. "Watch it! Make way! Pregnant lady on fire, comin' through!"

"Hey, buddy, _you_ watch it!"

Nack found himself being shoved off-balance, nearly toppled into the oncoming rush of people. He hadn't made it so far in the bounty hunting profession to be taken down so easily, though . . . in seconds, he was back on his feet and grabbing Mr. Pushy by the scruff of the neck. Before the brawny fox could even start to complain, he was cut off by Nack's ion pistol, which was now wavering dangerously close to his right temple.

"Oi, boyo," the weasel said as he flashed a toothy grin. "I wouldn't be pushin' poor helpless barbers like myself around if I were you. I might just use my power scissors here to give you a haircut from the neck up! Got me?"

Seeing that he'd adequately gotten his point across, Nack tossed the fox back amongst the crowd, who began to shove him around. Nack took the time to laugh at the poor bastard's attempts to regain his footing, then shook his head at all the stupidity in the world and went back to swimming against the tide.

Gradually, it began to thin out, mostly because there were getting to be far more robots than Mobian citizens on this side of the city. Nack barely had to slow down to pick off the traitorous Peacebots that even dared to look in his direction. He'd had far too much practice already at putting their kind out of commission to be overly bothered by them now, and his path through the Mobotropolis streets was soon littered with their torn and smoking husks.

It had all started almost an hour ago. All the Royal Acorn Air Force airships had suddenly appeared on the horizon, led by Warlord Julian's private craft. There were so many of them that the entire sky had seemed to have gone dark as night. Warbots rappelled their way down from the airships as the Peacebots on every street corner suddenly went berserk. Bombs began to fly and buildings crashed to the ground. The air became choked with smog and flying shrapnel.

Those Mobians who weren't killed outright were captured and carted off, for what purpose Nack couldn't guess. Nor did he care. The only thing on his mind at the time was reaching MobiaNet and ensuring the safety of his family.

A bomb hit nearby and flung dirt and plascrete up in the air, but he paid it no mind. Rogue Peacebots were becoming more frequent, but he simply mowed through them without blinking.

"Hail, domes!" he yelled out, slipping into dacker-speak as he dodged a volley of stun lasers. "Ye passin' out walkers, neh? Skullcap Nack er skolly on!" He laughed maniacally as his ion pistol turned them to scrap.

The laugh died in his throat as he finally reached his destination. Not one hundred yards away sat the entrance to the dacker alleyways . . . but less that seventy yards away sat two heavy-duty troop carriers and a tank, all crawling with Warbots who seemed to have an unhealthy fascination with the alley in question.

"No . . . " Nack moaned. "_No!_ Mother_fuckers!_" Nack popped the dim energy cell in his ion pistol out and quickly slapped in a new one. He felt a rage that he hadn't felt since the morning he had first met the people who had become his family. Everyone that had ever meant anything to him was in that alleyway, and now a gang of heartless metal bastards were planning to take it all away from him.

A scream of primal fury burst from his lungs as he launched himself forward. His anger had given him wings, making him blaze across the distance at supersonic speeds. He would shoot them until he had no more shots left in his gun. He would rip them apart with his bare hands until they were too bloody and torn to grasp anything. He would pour forth his anger and bile and all the resentment and hate and fears and pain that he had gathered up in his entire life and use it to spread fiery death among them . . . just don't take my family, _don't take my fami-_

He tripped.

He fell.

The pain that tore into his right arm wasn't as harsh as the pain ripping through his heart, but it was enough to force him back to reality momentarily. He blinked away the hot tears and looked to see what he had tripped over and possibly find out why it was making such a fuss over it.

Nack's eyes widened and he took in a sharp breath when he realized that he had tripped over a young child. It was barely distinguishable amidst the smoggy haze that had settled around the street - especially since it seemed to be rolled up in a fetal position - but it was a child, alright.

"Dammit!" he cursed, then laid out flat on the ground and quickly crawled his way to the child and reached out his hand. At his touch, the ball of fur started to bawl even louder than before, causing Nack to wince. He quickly located the thing's mouth and covered it with his glove to muffle the noise, then looked over his shoulder to see if any of the Warbots had noticed all the commotion.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, they had not. They weren't hellbent on tracking him and the child down, but only because they were too busy setting explosives around the buildings surrounding the alleyway.

_I don't have _time _for this!_ Nack thought. He staggered to his feet, picked up the child, and cradled it in his arms, his hand still firmly clamped on its mouth. He could see now that "it" was a "she" and that she was only about five years old, if even that. Two long ears with small purple ribbons told him that she was a rabbit, but nothing about her gave any indication of who she belonged to.

Now almost completely frustrated out of his wits, Nack scanned his surroundings to see if anyone else was stupid enough to be around this section of town . . . and indeed they were. Almost two blocks away, he could see an old lady herding a group of youngsters down the street, trying to stay out of the robots' lines of sight. At some point, the small girl that Nack now held must've gotten separated from the group.

She wouldn't survive out in the middle of the street. What little conscience Nack had wouldn't let him just drop her and let her take her own chances with the 'bots . . . she was only five years old! But if he took her with him to save the dackers, they might both get killed and the dackers would still be bombed . . . and if he took her to the old lady first, there would be no way in hell he could make it back in time to stop the explosives from going off!

A low whine escaped Nack's lips. He had to make a decision _now_, but he just couldn't make up his mind. His family needed him, but so did this little girl . . .

The pain of the decision must've made itself all too plain on Nack's face. The small bundle in his arms had stopped bawling, and now looked up at him with tearful, frightened eyes. He slowly raised his hand from her mouth, and she said just one thing in her weak, wavering voice.

"Please, mistuh . . . don't leave me . . . "

Nack looked down at the girl in surprise. His jaw worked for a few seconds, but made no headway into actually causing him to say anything. Their eyes were locked to each other, forging some sort of connection that he was powerless to break.

After what seemed like an eternity, he looked up. The old lady and her young charges had been joined by two other people . . . a hedgehog and a squirrel, from the looks of it. They were directing her towards a building on the other side of the street, but she was hardly paying attention to them. Instead, she was looking straight at Nack.

His jaw closed and tightened, as did his resolve. He had made his decision. The old lady seemed to recognize this, and he swore that he saw her head bow down sadly, as if she didn't approve of what he was doing but saw no way of stopping him.

Nack swung the kid onto his back and held her arms under his chin until she clasped her hands together. "Hang on tight, sugar," he said to her. "Things are gonna get _real_ excitin' here in a moment."

She hugged tightly to his back as he moved to take a different approach to the Warbots than he had before. Instead of rushing headlong forward, he began to creep amongst the wrecked gravcars, trying to get closer to the troop movers without getting noticed. He grinned as he moved forward. As long as those trucks were that close to the building, they wouldn't detonate the charges, he knew. He had plenty of time . . .

. . . plenty of time see one of the Warbots pull out a dead-man switch and pull the trigger, as it turned out. It was during that terrible second between the switch-pull and its release that he realized his mistake. Mobian troops would have moved back from the killzone, but robot troops didn't give a damn. He could almost hear the switch click as the 'bot's finger pulled away . . . and it was followed by the sound of a family dying.

Nack turned away from the blast, dodged back behind the nearest gravgar, and strongarmed the small rabbit child back in front of himself. She was still hanging onto his neck, leaving his arms free to spread his longcoat out and then around her, shielding her from the debris that came raining down and the smoke that belched out of the building's burning husk.

Both of them were coughing their lungs out and covered completely with soot by the time they reached relatively fresh air. Nack looked around to find that the streets were completely empty of both Mobians and robots. A wretched sob grew in his chest and fought its way to the surface. Tears began to cut a path through the dirt and grime covering the fur on his face as he fell forward onto his knees. Rocks dug into his skin, but he didn't care . . . none of it mattered anymore.

They were dead. His entire family, gone . . . again. _Again!_ There was no justice in the world, no happy ending for Nack The Weasel. He was the only one left; and moreover, it was _all his fault._ If he hadn't deliberated for so long, if he had just taken the little girl to the old woman and been done with her, if he had just hurried his stupid slow ass _up_ a little . . . they'd still be alive, and he wouldn't be all alone.

A sound of misery coming from near his chest reminded him, however, that he was _not_ alone. The rabbit girl was still there, clinging to his neck. She had buried her face in his chest fur, caught up in her own world of loss, confusion, and fear.

Nack wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. She returned the favor by tightening her own grip. Together, the two of them drowned their sorrow in tears until there were no more tears left.

* * *

Nearly an hour after the death of both their worlds, Nack stood up and started to walk towards the edge of town. He was able to easily avoid the Peacebot patrols now that all the noise had died down, and the Warbots had apparently decided to vacate the city completely. Once he reached the city limits, he ducked into a secret garage of his . . . one of many that he had built around the city of Mobotropolis, and one of many that he knew he would never use again.

He set the little girl on the back of his hoverbike as he searched around the garage for supplies. Camping utilities he always had on hand; but food, he found, was in short supply. He scrounged what he could from a mostly empty mini-fridge and put it all in one of the side compartments on his bike.

After he had conducted one last search for anything useful, Nack stepped back over to the bike, helmet in hand. The girl hadn't moved from where he had set her. She just sat there, staring down at her feet and crying silent tears.

"Oi. Kiddo," he said softly, getting her attention. "You'll need this." He handed her the hoverbike helmet and showed her how to put it on. It was a couple of sizes too big for her small head, but she had to have some sort of protection. Nack didn't want to have gotten her this far just to lose her to a stupid bike accident.

"So, ah," he said awkwardly after she'd gotten situated, " . . . what's your name?"

She just stared at him through the helmet's open visor.

"Right," he said. "Well, look . . . I'm Nack. I . . . I just want to apologize about what happened back there. I don't know what I was thinking. I mean, I don't know how to take care of a kid. Hell, I can't even take care of a hamster . . . "

That, at least, elicited a weak giggle from the girl.

"Now there ya go, kiddo," he said as he brushed some particularly bunched up grime from her shoulder. He smiled at her for a moment, then sighed sadly. "Here's the deal, okay?" he told her. "We're gonna have to take care of each other for now. We ain't got much to go on except ourselves, and I can't keep up with just me. So . . . I'm gonna need your help. Do you think you can do that?"

A small shrug.

"That's gonna have to do for now, I guess," said Nack. "If you _are_ gonna help, tho', it'd really do wonders for me if I had something to call you besides 'hey, you' and 'yo, cute stuff'!" He winked at her, getting another giggle for his efforts. She looked down for a moment afterwards, then looked back up, her bright green eyes burning into his.

"Bunnie 'lizabeth Rabbit," she said, her voice muffled by the hoverbike helmet. Nack smiled at her and patted her softly on the back.

"Good gehl," he said with a smile. "Well, Ms. Rabbit . . . do you think you could tell me where your family is?"

Whatever confidence Nack had won with her rapidly disappeared. Nack felt his own eyes start to water as the girl choked back a sob. He quickly grabbed her up and hugged her tightly to himself and started making comforting noises.

"Tsh tsh tsh tsh . . . c'mon now, it'll be alright," he said as she hugged his neck and cried into his shoulder. "It's okay . . . it'll all be okay . . . _I'll_ be your family now . . . it'll all . . . be alright . . . "

* * *

That evening, father and daughter sped out into the wastelands to find their new life together.

**END PART ONE**

Roland Lowery  
esn1g(at)yahoo(dot)com


	2. Living Large

The following short story is based on characters created and/or copyrighted by SEGA! Enterprises, DiC Productions, Archie Comic Publishers, Fleetway Comic Publishers, and the Taki Corporation. All other characters were created and copyrighted by Roland Lowery.

The author gives full permission to distribute this work freely, as long as no alterations are made and the exchange of monetary units is not involved. Any questions, comments, suggestions, or complaints should be sent to **esn1g(at)yahoo(dot)com**. Thank you.

* * *

"Hopefulness is the heartbeat of the relationship between a  
parent and child. Each time a child overcomes the next challenge  
of his life, his triumph encourages new growth in his parents."  
-Louise J. Kaplan, psychologist

* * *

**The Next Life Over** - Part Two: _Living Large_   
by Roland Lowery

**Friday, May 1  
3226 AD**

_The wind whipped through_ Nack The Weasel's fur as he shot like a dart across the Great Plains that separated the newly renamed city of Robotropolis from the continent-spanning Great Forest. He only occasionally spared a glance down at the gauges on his highly - and illegally - modified hovercycle as he sped along. All the conversions to the bike had been made by Nack himself, and he had complete faith that it was operating at full capacity even though he was pushing it faster and farther than it had any right to go.

The plains ahead of him were nice and flat, only broken up now and again by a single tree or small boulder. Since there was little danger ahead of him and little danger in the hovercycle going dead, Nack spent most of his time looking over his shoulder at the _huge_ danger that was straining to catch up with him.

A mad grin began to creep over the bounty hunter's face as the Massive Mobian Relocation Assault Vehicle closed the distance between them. The fusion boosters that propelled the MMRAV along on its grav plating outmatched the anti-gravity particle generators that drove Nack's bike, but only just barely. He knew he would have to deal with the metal behemoth sooner or later . . . and he knew just how to do it. He simply had to pick the right time.

Ever since Doctor Ivo Robotnik had taken over the Acorn Kingdom and for all intents and purposes the entire world of Mobius, he had been sending out troops of SWATbots in hoverpods to flush out whatever Mobians they could find to be taken back to one of the robot-controlled cities for immediate roboticization. Nack had run across several of these squads and promptly trashed them when they tried to take him captive.

Losing so many 'bots - not just to the weasel but to all the newly forming Freedom Fighter enclaves - was becoming a drain on the not-so-good doctor's resources, so he decided to start converting old hovertanks into enormous troopcarriers. From all counts that Nack had heard, several hundred of these monster machines roamed the planet, filled to the brim with SWATbots in mini-hoverpods and stocked with a good sized holding pen for prisoners.

As soon as the MMRAV's onboard computer decided that it had gotten close enough to the escaping weasel, it would open the hangar doors on either side of its bulk and release the pod-riding 'bots to pin him down. Nack couldn't let that happen.

He took one last glance down at his bike's control panel, then put his plan into action. With the quick flip of a switch and hard turn of the handlebars, Nack's hovercycle turned a perfect 180 and rocketed back directly towards the approaching MMRAV. Nack felt a slight tug at his innards, but the highly sophisticated inertial dampener that he had appropriated and installed several years ago kept the g-forces from making him nauseous, unconscious, or dead.

Another switchflip turned the anti-gravity field up to a highly dangerous level as he laid the cycle down flat on its side and he crawled up on top of it. He could see the hatches on the sides of the MMRAV begin to open as he jumped up onto the slanted nose of the giant vehicle. Blood thundered through his ears, drowning out the sound of his magnetic boots soles clanging on the MMRAV's hull. His hovercycle was now directly underneath the behemoth, causing the anti-grav and grav plate fields to meet and violently press away from each other.

The vehicle lurched violently, but Nack managed to stay on. He continued running along its length, making his way to the back as fast as his whipcord muscles could go. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he reached the back edge of the MMRAV just as the opposing grav fields made it fly up into the air as if flung by the hand of a giant. Nack flew through the air as well, half under his own jumping power and half through the tank's violent upswing, and drew his grappling hook pistol.

He activated the hook after a split-second of careful aiming, causing it to speed down towards his hovercycle, which had just shot out from under the MMRAV. As soon as the hook had passed the topmost handlebar, Nack hit the retract button, making it to jerk back upwards and entangle itself around the bike's handle and start pulling him straight downward.

One of the reasons Nack had decided to use a hovercycle instead of a gravcycle was the 180 degree area that the anti-grav field of a hoverunit covered. An excellent safety feature for when a rider fell off their bike, and a lifesaver when used as a landing cushion like Nack was doing now. It slowed his decent as, once again, the inertial dampener kept him from going under. He quickly grabbed the bike, turned it upright, pulled into a stop, and switched off the nearly overloaded power cells just as the MMRAV hit the ground upside-down with a resounding crunch.

Nack watched, his maniacal grin still in place, as the other vehicle began to roll end over end and get torn to pieces by the unforgiving earth. The grin froze and then began to slide away as a chill ran up his spine.

_I could have died,_ he thought. _Great Walkers, I could have **died!**_

He shook his head and cursed himself for a fool. The Nack of a few years ago wouldn't have given a damn. He would've kept that insane grin on his face the whole time afterwards, loving every second of the action. At the very most, he would have just moved on, satisfied that he'd gotten rid of yet another annoyance.

But now . . . now his life belonged to someone else. Now he couldn't afford to take such idiotic chances, no matter how much he trusted in his own abilities. If he died because of his old recklessness, he wouldn't be the only one to suffer, and he simply couldn't allow that anymore.

He cursed himself again, started his bike on a lowered power output, and sped towards the Great Forest.

He had a daughter to take care of.

* * *

"Da!"

Nack quickly crouched down to intercept the small blur of brown fur that launched itself at him with the ravenous speed only an extremely happy eight year old could muster.

"Hey, kiddo!" Nack hugged his daughter tightly to his chest as he carried her over to the other side of their camouflage covered tent. There, he sat down on a small canvas camping chair and set her on his lap. "Anything excitin' happen while I was gone?" he asked.

"Nope," Liz said. "Did ya bring me anything?"

Nack let his face droop comically, looking horribly miserable as he sucked fretfully on his oversized fang. Liz giggled and playfully punched him on the shoulder, causing him to burst out in a wicked grin. He reached into one of the many inner pockets of his jacket and produced a small holocube.

"Oh, Da!" she cried out in delight. He handed the small cube to her and smiled as her eyes quickly scanned the tiny print on the side, making sure it was the one she'd wanted. "How'd ya get it?" she asked after checking it over.

"Ah, pfsh," he snorted, waving a hand indifferently. "It was easy. Just had ta dust me a Raver or two for it."

Liz's eyes went wide as she bounced excitedly on Nack's knee. "Tell me 'bout it, Da!"

The next half-hour was spent telling the young girl of his heroic battle against two giant MMRAVs with hundreds of SWATbots in hoverpods flying all around, and culminating with a massive one-on-one fist-fight with the evil and powerful Doctor Ivo Robotnik himself with the precious holocube as the sole prize of the entire endeavor. Nack, of course, knew that the true story was in itself pretty exciting . . . but if he told the _real_ story, he wouldn't get to make all the voices for the 'bots and Dr. Robotnik, or describe all the explosions, or use any of the other storytelling devices his daughter loved so much.

"'I'll get you next time, Weasel!'" he bellowed deeply, shaking his fist in the air, "'_NEXT TIME!_'" The young rabbit squealed in delight and clapped her hands as Nack smiled and tousled the fur between her long ears. "Okay, kiddo, tell ya what," he said. "You go get cleaned up, and we'll watch the cube before you go to bed, hey?"

"Okay, Da," Liz said as she kissed the bounty hunter on the tip of his nose. She then quickly scrambled down from his lap and ran over to the makeshift camp shower and closed the curtain.

Nack was still smiling as he stood up and walked over to a small folding table in the center of the tent. There, he pulled his ion pistol, gas gun, and grappling hook from their various holsters and set about disassembling them one by one and cleaning them with a small kit. The actions were all routine, something he did every day without fail, so he was able to let his mind wander while his hands went through the motions automatically.

It had been two years since the world of Mobius had changed dramatically. Nack and Liz had spent a good part of the first year wandering back and forth across the continent, checking on just how far the damage of Robotnik's takeover had spread. Unfortunately, they found that it was almost all-encompassing. Except for one or two holdouts, every major city had been taken over by SWATbots and placed under the control of one of Robotnik's higher-AI echelon lieutenants. Even the Mobian-controlled cities were under constant siege. Getting in or out was nearly impossible, and the living conditions inside made it barely worth trying the former path.

Besides the cities, the only other option was living in one of the many villages of Freedom Fighters that dotted the planet. For Nack and his daughter, however, it wasn't _much_ of an option. Living with Freedom Fighters meant fighting Robotnik, something that Nack didn't want any part of. As far as the Weasels were concerned, the war was none of their business, unless someone could cough up enough of a payment for him to sign with them permanently.

So, the two of them had finally ended up living in the Great Forest for the most part, trying to stay carefully neutral in the whole affair. After they had settled in, only once did Nack try to contact anyone outside. But it was to no avail . . . the Bounty Hunter Guild had, mysteriously, disappeared. It almost seemed as if every single member had just floated away in the breeze, never to be heard from again.

Probably, Nack had thought at the time, they were just doing the same as him . . . holing up somewhere until the whole thing blew over. If it ever _did_ blow over . . .

Life in the forest wasn't so bad, overall. Liz had taken to it almost immediately and even seemed to know a great deal about it. She often pointed out certain types of trees, flowers, and animals while telling Nack everything she knew about them. Nack already knew most of it but as the doting parent, of course, he would listen to her talk for hours as she covered every tiny detail about the sparrow's mating cycle, or the black elm to pine tree ratio, or anything else that struck her fancy.

To Nack, it seemed almost as if her knowledge came not only from book learning, but from actual hands-on experience as well. Someone had brought her out to the forest and taught her all these things. Whenever Nack asked her about it, she'd withdraw from him slightly, so he eventually stopped asking.

Past that small dark spot, the two of them lived happily. Nack would make runs into Robotropolis infrequently to gather supplies, secure in the knowledge that Liz would be plenty safe on her own for a while. She obviously knew the Great Forest well enough, and he had taught her a good bit of basic self-defense and survival just in case.

What he _hadn't_ actively taught her, however, was martial arts . . . or how to ride a hovercycle . . . or meditate . . . or any of the other skills he had learned with the dackers or the guild. He had wanted to spare her the life he had been leading before he met her, the life that had been threatening to swallow him whole . . . but she had learned anyway.

It had been almost seven months ago that he had been practicing his katas outside the tent and had happened to look over and see Liz mimicking his movements a few yards away. He'd been angry at first, since he had specifically told her not to follow him when he was training. The anger quickly faded, however, as he decided to just let her be. She was just doing a little monkey-see-monkey-do routine, and he figured she would probably grow tired of it after a week or so.

Three months later it became obvious that she would not be growing tired anytime soon. She had not only vastly improved in her technique over that time, she had grown bold enough to stand right beside Nack as she followed his every move almost perfectly. During those three months, he had come out of his meditative trances to find her just coming out of her own, seen her studying the control panel of his hoverbike, and caught her reading through the owner's manuals for his pistols on the sly.

Finally, he realized that even trying to expressly forbid Liz from following in his footsteps would be futile, and he knew that if she continued on without some sort of guidance, she could end up hurting herself. So, he caved in and started to teach her everything he knew.

She was a voracious learner. Nack had to go to Robotropolis almost every day now and scrounge up holocubes about any number of subjects related to his job, from martial arts training holos to documentaries on famous bounty hunters to electronic schematics for security systems. The latest addition to Liz's ever-growing collection was an introduction to wilderness tracking.

Nack knew that eventually, however, simple holos and training exercises weren't going to be enough to satisfy Liz. She wasn't going to settle for just shooting tin cans off of rotting tree stumps, or punching and kicking sandbags, or following deer tracks through the forest. It might be several several years in the future, but she would eventually want to sink her teeth into the real thing.

Liz was going to be ready for it when the time came, Nack had no doubts about that . . . whether or not _he_ was going to be ready was another story entirely.

"Da?"

Nack blinked rapidly a few times before realizing that he had long since finished cleaning his pistols. Liz was at his side now, shaking the sleeve of his longcoat gently. He looked down at her, shaking away the last bit of dazed confusion that coming out of his thoughts had put him in.

"What's up, kiddo?" he asked.

She smiled up at him, her slightly damp fur clinging to her dimpled cheeks. "Time to watch the movie, da."

"Right-right!" he said jauntily as he stood up and walked over to the holoviewer to load the cube. "Up for peepin' sub-zero phants, neh? Viddies 'n' hollies 'n' runamucks! Skolly on, L!"

"Skollyin', Da, throttlin'!" she called back at him. She clambered up onto his lap as he sat down and pressed the power on the HV's remote. As the holo cued up, she snuggled up to his chest and put her hand over his heart. "I love you, Da," she said softly.

"I love you, too, kiddo," he whispered back. "I love you, too."

* * *

**Friday, January 3  
3231 AD**

Nack The Weasel punched furiously at the control panel of his hovercycle, causing it to squeal a little harder in protest, then settle back into a more comfortable whine and pitch. He cursed softly and promised himself that he would service the engine just as soon as his current job was over. Speaking of which . . .

"How we doin', kiddo?" the bounty hunter yelled over his shoulder.

Bunnie Elizabeth Weasel gave him a quick backwards nudge with her shoulder and let out a wild war whoop as she pumped another round into her high-powered rifle and let fly speeding lead into the nearest SWATbot hoverpod. Nack grinned and shook his head, turning his attention back to keeping the bike on track. He never quite understood his daughter's slight fascination with solid projectile weapons, but he had to admit that the thirteen-year-old was quite proficient with them, both in aiming them as well as tricking them out so that they had enough punch to puncture steel.

The hoverpod that she had just shot wobbled a bit, then finally hit the ground with a satisfying crunch and scatter of parts. With two more precise shots, Liz managed to down its companions in short order. Flush with the pride of a job well done, she turned back around in her seat, slid the snub-nosed rifle back into its thigh-holster, and wrapped her whipcord-muscled arms around her father's waist.

"All wrapped up, Da!" she yelled above the screaming wind.

"Good gehl!" he replied. "We just gotta delivery to make, and we can get the hell outta here!"

* * *

"You're late."

"You wish, Clockwatcher."

Nack flashed an oily smile at his current employer, designed expressly to tick her off, then waved a hand in the air dismissively.

"Ah," he said, "we ran into some SWATs on the way over. You know how it is."

The straightlaced vixen sitting across the table from him and Liz ground her teeth together. He knew that she knew quite well that he could've been there early, SWATbots or no SWATbots, but that he was intentionally trying to grind away against her obsession with timeliness. From the way Liz was obviously failing to cover a smile, he also knew that she had been watching the whole silent fight from the beginning and enjoying every second of it.

Something about the lady he called Clockwatcher just wasn't quite right, Nack thought. Her mind was so twisted around the absolute certainty that everything could and should be placed on an exact timetable; a rigid inflexibility that he simply couldn't stand to deal with.

But, business is business, so he'd gotten her the item she had requested. It hadn't been easy, but the payment would be well worth it in the end. He waited just a few more seconds, hoping that Clockwatcher would finally crack and try to chew him out for his tardiness, then pulled a small package from one of the many inner pockets of his jacket.

"But, hey," he said with a shrug, "better late than never. I got what you want, of course. But . . . "

Clockwatcher's beady eyes clung to the package in Nack's hand, locked onto it as he idly swung it back in forth. Sweat started to pop out from under the fur on her forehead. She reached up and irritably swiped it away with a long, slender hand.

"Yes, yes," she snapped, "but _what_?"

"_But_," Nack continued, "are you sure you really want it?"

Her gaze jumped up to his abruptly. She suddenly looked more like a striking snake than a fox.

"You're joking," she said sharply. "There is no possible way that you are serious with that question. I hired you to find it. I'm paying for its delivery - _quite handsomely_, I might add - and I am currently waiting for you to give it to me, you . . . _Nack_."

Nack's eyebrows raised almost of their own accord. The way she said his name, he almost preferred she had gone ahead with a mere curse word. It wouldn't have sounded near as abusive.

"We are wasting valuable _time_, bounty hunter," Clockwatcher said, her fine features finally starting to crack.

"Alrighty then," Nack said with a shrug. He placed the package on the table and slid it across to her, then pulled over the small data crystal that she pushed over to him. "Pleasure doing business with ya. C'mon, kiddo, let's get gone."

As they left, Nack threw one last glance over his shoulder at Clockwatcher. She was completely ignoring the two other Mobians, instead staring intently into the silvery face of her prize. He shook his head sadly and left her to it.

"What was that all about?" Liz asked once they were outside.

Nack frowned and shook his head again. "A lesson for ya, kiddo," he said. "Sometimes what people want isn't really what they need."

Liz looked puzzled. "What do ya mean?" she asked.

"Take ol' Clockwatcher there," he said. "That thing we picked up for her is a little magical doodad that shows the viewer events seven hours in the future. Sound useful?"

"Well, yah," she replied.

Nack shrugged. "Yah, I'd think so, too. In fact, for someone who'd just be lookin' in on it once or twice for kicks or just when they figured they really needed it, it probably would be pretty handy to have around. But this lady," he said with a jerk of his thumb, "she's got nothing on her mind but how seeing seven hours into her future will let her effectively control every single aspect of her life."

"Won't it?"

"Nope," Nack said, shaking his head. "I'd bet credits to microchips that if we came back here in a year, we'd find her corpse sittin' there, staring into the damn thing 'cause she couldn't spare the time to set it down and get around to actually doing the things she'd spent her entire time watching her future self doing."

Liz looked back at the building they had just left, a concerned look on her face. "That's so sad," she said.

"Yah," he said, "yah, it is. But it's not our concern . . . she's gotta live her own life however she's gonna live it, and it's not our place to tell her not ta. The only thing I want you to concern yourself with is the lesson so you don't fall into the same trap. Remember the difference between what you _need_ . . . and what you _want_."

"I will, Da," she said, her young face bunched in serious thought as they took their seats on Nack's hoverbike. "I will."

* * *

Less than an hour later, Nack and Liz were standing outside an old run-down bunker set amidst the ruins of a small border town on the southernmost edge of the Northern Territories. Since the few border towns dotting the planet of Mobius were often far too small for the evil Dr. Robotnik to worry with, they had all pretty much been smashed to the ground and left as little more than ghost towns. As far as Nack knew, there weren't any Freedom Fighter groups stupid enough to use an old border town as their base, but a number of them found it handy to use the occasional building left standing in them as storage for odds and ends they couldn't keep in their regular hideouts.

"So what'd we get, Da?" Liz asked as he punched in the passcode to the bunker's garage doors. "Food? Firearms? Sundry goods and services? What!"

He gave her a slightly sardonic look as he tried to pull the door up on its rusty tracks. "Do you want . . . to spoil . . . the surprise?" he asked between attempts. She fell into silent anticipation as he finally managed to wedge the door high enough for the two of them to crawl under.

Except for the dim twilight that crept in under the door, the single large room of the bunker was pitch black dark. Nack and Liz quickly activated their glo-lights and shone them around.

"There we go," Nack said after just a short bit of searching. "Ain't she a beaut, kiddo?"

He looked over at Liz to see that she was absolutely speechless. She gaped at the giant machine sitting in front of them, unable to do anything for the moment but admire the curve of its hull and the obvious power that lurked within its engine, waiting to be let out. With a girlish squeal of excitement, she rushed over to the side of the machine and started inspecting it more closely.

"Oh, Da!" she exclaimed. "It's amazing!"

"Ain't it, tho'? And the best part?" he said. "She's _yours_."

Liz looked back at him, wide-eyed. "You're kidding," she said.

"Apparently I've been doin' that a lot," he replied bemusedly. "But nah, nah . . . it's yours alright, assumin' you want 'er. I figure since this was your very first bounty hunt, you should take the whole payment. Special occasion and all'a that. Of course, if you don't want it, I can go back and tell the clock lady tha-"

"Don't you dare!" she cried out as she bounded over and enveloped him in a rib-breaking hug. Tears of joy had begun to stream down her face, making her eyes shine in the dim light. "It's a Walkerdamned Gravtech Berin model ATV, and I'll be damned before we give it back!"

"My my, such language for such a little lady!" Nack said, feeling his own eyes start to mist up. "Who the hell taught you such? Sure didn't come from _my_ side of the family."

The two of them laughed as they hugged each other tightly for a long time, Liz feeling fortunate beyond words to have such a loving father and Nack near to bursting with pride in how well his daughter was growing up.

"Well," he said after they had stepped back from each other, "how's about we check out this hunka-junk's insides, neh? I dunno 'bout you, kiddo, but I could definitely catch a few winks, and I hear these Berins've got some pretty good accommodations . . . "

He wrapped an arm around Liz's shoulders and the two of them stepped into their new home-away-from-home for the first time.

* * *

Nack had been right. The bunk beds in the Berin all-terrain vehicle were far and away better than the cots and sleeping bags that they had been using, even after all the years the machine had been sitting in storage. Both father and daughter knew that, in the end, comfort was a very low priority in the big scheme of things, but when the occasional bit of pampering came along of its own accord, they weren't about to complain.

Both bounty hunters had fallen asleep almost the second their heads hit their pillows, a combination of their improved sleeping arrangements and training themselves to sleep whenever the chance to sleep presented itself. They both knew that 'bot patrols could come through at any time, but they both had to get at least a little rest before they tackled the difficult job of restoring the ATV to working condition.

Nack was already dreaming his way through random bits of the restoration, in fact, when he woke to a slight touch on his forehead. Normally if something had woken him up, whatever it was would have quickly found itself on the wrong end of one of his pistols, but the forehead touch was a signal that it was just Liz.

He automatically scooted over on the bunk and turned on his side to face her, making room for her to lay down and curl up next to him. She slid in under the sheets, then turned onto her side and pushed her back up against him. He laid his chin on top of her head, right between her long ears, and wrapped his left arm around her side. He gently stroked his hand up and down her belly and hummed softly.

The whole ritual was done silently and instinctively. It was something they had gone through off and on for several years, though it had slackened off as time went by . . . still, Nack had had the feeling that it would happen again tonight, so he wasn't in the least bit surprised by it.

After a short while Liz asked the question she always asked on those dark, empty nights.

"Da . . . tell me about Mom."

Nack stopped humming and sighed. He continued rubbing the young girl's stomach as he talked, keeping his voice soft and reassuring as he possibly could.

"She was a wonderful lady, kiddo," he said. "The first time I met her was at a guild meetin'. One look at her and my heart melted. One look _from_ her and the rest of me followed suit. She came over, smooth as silk, and asked me if I was all right, so I told her the only way I was gonna be all right was if she'd fall madly, desperately in love with me so I wouldn't die of a fatally broken heart. Damned if that isn't just what she did, all t'save some scraggly-lookin' weasel from dyin' of lovesickness.

"But she was like that . . . always thinkin' of others before thinkin' of herself. She was noble in ways that you only hear about in fey tales; ways that folks like me can only dream of matching. Sometimes I felt guilty about keeping such a precious lady tied to me because of my own frailty in the presence of her beauty, but I could no more live without her than I could live without air. We were together for only a few months before we finally tied the knot in the biggest, most expensive wedding ceremony you ever did see.

"We were inseparable, kiddo, and that's a fact. We did everything together. We ate together. We hunted together. Hell, sometimes we'd just sit around and enjoy _breathing_ together. Just being in the same room with the lady was like being in the same room with the Ancient Walkers themselves, basking in power and understanding and compassion that went beyond Mobian comprehension.

"It was a joy just to _look_ at her. Emerald green eyes . . . winnin' smile . . . hair the color of autumn leaves. When she laughed, the entire world stopped to hear it, and her smile outshone the sun and all the stars put together. We loved each other implicitly and lived each day as if it was the greatest day in our lives.

"And then we had you, luv, and it _was_ the happiest day in our lives. She named ya, y'know. Right there on the spot. She loved you so very, very much . . . "

It was a lie.

Both of them knew quite well that Nack had found Liz in Mobotropolis during Robotnik's coup and that the mother that he told her about was nothing but a creation of his. A lie. But on some nights, when the laughter and smiles and love that they had for each other just wasn't quite enough to fill that empty space that resided in both their hearts, they _needed_ the lie.

That night they cried each other to sleep.

* * *

**Tuesday, August 9  
3233 AD**

Nack The Weasel squinted as he emerged from the dark insides of the Opal Oracle's temple and into the harsh sunlight pouring into the jungle clearing surrounding it. He snugged his hat a bit further down on his head to try and block some of the brighter rays as he made his way down the temple's front staircase, taking three steps at a time. He didn't look back as the figure that had been waiting for him just outside the entryway easily fell into step behind him.

He smiled to himself as he thought over the fact that his follower could easily outdistance him if she really wanted to, using the massively powerful muscles in her legs to bound down the steps eight or nine at a time as easily as he could walk across level ground. He knew that she could, if she wanted and if he was anyone but who he was, make those giant leaps and yet still be so silent at it that she could sneak up on someone and snap their neck before they even noticed someone else was there.

He knew that she could take a man down in less than five seconds using any of a hundred different tactics, ranging from non-lethal to extremely painful to bloodily merciless. He reveled in the fact that she could track anything or anyone anywhere at any time, do complex logic puzzles in her head with ridiculous ease, foil booby traps of all size and make with minimal tools, and any of a hundred other skills she had learned over the years.

Often he felt nearly overwhelmed when he thought about all this. And why not? What man could truly say that the pride he felt in his own daughter's accomplishments didn't threaten to overtake him from time to time? How could he _not_ be proud of Liz Weasel?

And now that he had seen what the Oracle had shown him, he felt even more pleased with himself and with her. That other life he had seen had been so . . . so horrible! Without Liz by his side, it had been so empty, so devoid of joy and happiness. He couldn't possibly understand how that other Nack could stand to be so alone.

"What's the game plan now, Da?" Liz asked when they finally reached the bottom of the stairs. Just a short ways away sat the _Rough Rider_, their massive ATV. Nack started towards it as he answered.

"First we pick up the supplies that Jumpy's people have left at the dump site for us," he said, holding up the data crystal the Freedom Fighter had given him a short time before, "then we've gotta head over to Knothole Village. Apparently, our services are badly needed in the capitol city area."

"Razor," Liz said with a grin.

* * *

That afternoon, father and daughter sped out across the Great Plains to their destiny.

**END OF PART TWO**

Roland Lowery  
esn1g(at)yahoo(dot)com

December 12, 2003


	3. Separate Lives

The following short story is based on characters created and/or copyrighted by SEGA! Enterprises, DiC Productions, Archie Comic Publishers, Fleetway Comic Publishers, and the Taki Corporation. All other characters were created and copyrighted by Roland Lowery.

The author gives full permission to distribute this work freely, as long as no alterations are made and the exchange of monetary units is not involved. Any questions, comments, suggestions, or complaints should be sent to **esn1g(at)yahoo(dot)com**. Thank you.

* * *

"In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment  
and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour."   
-Stefan Zweig

* * *

**The Next Life Over** - Part Three: _Separate Lives_   
by Roland Lowery

**Tuesday, August 9  
3233 AD**

_"So, what did the_ oracle have t'say to ya?"

Nack The Weasel frowned slightly at the question. "Why do ya wanna know?" he asked.

The _Rough Rider_'s driver spared him a longsuffering glance before turning her attention back to the terrain before them. "C'mon," she said. "It's a hunk of rock that tells the future! Who _wouldn't_ want to know what it said?"

"Well, take a guy who's gonna die just five minutes after talkin' to the oracle, no matter what," Nack replied. "I'm pretty sure _he_ wouldn't be too happy with the news, neh?"

"Jeez, Da," she said, swatting at his shoulder playfully. "Just spill it already!"

"Okay, okay," said Nack as he shifted up in his seat. "The Opal Oracle, in all its magnificent wisdom and clarity of vision, said that I'm a swell guy with a beautiful daughter, and that I shouldn't buy any stock in Ivo-brand robotics. Happy?"

"And that's it?"

The weasel shrugged. "Except for the 'swell guy' part, yah," he said. "It actually used a much more colorful metaphor. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna catch some shuteye before we hit Knothole."

"Ah, keep your secrets then, old man," she said, smiling ruefully as he pulled his hat down over his eyes. "I still love ya, even if you are a complete ass."

"I love you, too, kiddo," he said, his voice muffled by the fabric of his hat, "even though I _am_ a complete ass. G'night."

"G'night."

* * *

Life was good. Now more than ever, Nack could see that.

It had been almost ten years since the day he had thought he had lost everything in a fiery explosion; ten years since he'd found his true purpose in life in the form of his daughter, Bunnie Elizabeth Weasel. During that time, he'd watched her grow from a precocious and fiercely irrepressible six year old to the talented and dazzlingly beautiful fifteen year old sitting in the driver's seat beside him. Though he had resisted doing so at first, he had eventually begun to teach her the craft of bounty hunting, a profession that she took to with amazing adroitness. Nack new quite well that she was probably already his equal in many ways, and that by the time he was ready to retire, she'd have surpassed the highest skill levels he had achieved in his prime.

The _Rough Rider_ was a testament to her abilities, in fact. It had been the spoils of her very first hunt, given entirely over to her as a gift from Nack for doing a spectacular job. Though it had been a good amount of trouble to restore completely, Liz had thrown herself completely into the task and now the massive all-terrain vehicle thrummed with barely contained power. All of the technical knowledge that Nack had imparted to her as well as a number of things she had come up with on her own had gone into the machine, souping it up well beyond even the wildest expectations of its original designers.

The _Rider_ now served as Nack and Liz's primary form of travel as well as their home. The back sections of the grav-plated vehicle came complete with living quarters far more lush than any of the camping sites they had been living in beforehand. There was also a small cargo bay which held Nack's old hovercycle. Though Nack still took the bike out for a spin every once in a while, it mostly just sat in the back, collecting dust during the time he wasn't tinkering with it or performing maintenance checks.

Over the years since Liz had joined Nack in the hunt, they had been traveling across the major continental mass of Mobius, taking on odd jobs here and there, mostly in trade for food and various other supplies they needed. Usually their employers were people trying to live it out on their own, willing to trade some of their hoard for a trinket or help finding someone they had lost touch with after Robotnik's coup. Only twice had they tried working for Dr. Robotnik himself, much to their detriment. Working for him was simply bad business all around.

On very rare occasion, they would work for a Freedom Fighter cell. They actively tried to avoid doing so, not wanting to get _too_ involved in the war going on between them and the not-so-good doctor, but sometimes the promised payment made it well worth their while. Because it didn't happen often, it was very odd that they were going from one such job - finding the Opal Oracle for an FF leader in the Northern Arafan Territories - to yet another in Knothole Village.

Liz hadn't commented on it, since she implicitly trusted her father for one thing. For another, both of them always enjoyed going to Knothole. Even during times when they weren't working with the FF there, they had stopped in for short visits, having made good friends with many of the people there.

In fact, one of those friends was running alongside the _Rider_ when Nack awoke and pushed his hat back up on his head. He smiled and waved through the window at the runner, who waved back before blasting forward in a combination of blue blur and brown dust clouds. They were still on the Great Plains, a good bit away from the Great Forest yet, but Nack felt reassured that their coming would already be reported to the nearest FF guard post within the next few seconds.

Nack was lucky to have all these friends and, most importantly, a daughter that loved him. Yes, life was good, and it was only going to get better as time went on.

* * *

"Weasel."

"Hedgehog."

Nack and Sonic T. Hedgehog, self proclaimed Fastest Thing Alive, stared each other down solemnly as they stood underneath a guard post deep in the Great Forest. Tension crackled through the air as each Mobian shifted slowly from one foot to the other in preparation. They both reached back, preparing to strike . . .

. . . and slammed their palms together, shaking hands vigorously.

"How the hell's it goin', Blue-boy?" Nack asked, flashing his over-sized fang in a wide grin.

"Not too bad, Nackster!" Sonic replied as he gave the bounty hunter's shoulder a friendly slap. "It just the same ol', same ol', y'know?"

Nack nodded and then turned back to the _Rider_. "Same here, man," he said as he helped Liz down from the ATV's side door. Sonic immediately stepped over to the young rabbit, knelt down on one knee, took her hand, and kissed it.

"Enchanting to see ya, Miss Weasel," he said with a slight bow and flourish.

"Well, now," Liz said, blushing slightly under her fur, "a lady might just get t'likin' this! Ol' Sally Girl musta been teaching you some manners since we were here last, neh?"

Sonic winked at her and wagged a finger in the air. "She's been tryin', Liz," he said, "but the main hedgehog can only put on so much fake charm before the _real_ charm just _hasta_ come shinin' through!"

"Oh, brother!" the rabbit said, rolling her eyes in mock sarcasm.

"Speaking of the Sal Gal," Nack interjected, "got any idea where she'd be? We're supposed to meet her about some mission she wants to hire us on for."

Sonic did a half-turn and patted his shoulder. "Sal's hut just happens to be the next stop on the ol' Hedgehog Express. Care to hop on? Tickets are half-price today for all cranky old men and their charmin' daughters!"

"Think we could trade adjectives?" Nack asked Liz, who giggled as they grabbed onto Sonic's shoulders and the world bled into a sea of green and brown blurs. One breathtaking burst of superspeed later, and they were standing before the small hut belonging to Princess Sally Alicia Acorn, rightful heir to the throne of the Acorn Kingdom and leader of the Knothole Freedom Fighters.

"Thanks for the ride, shugah," Liz said after she and her father had time to catch their breath. She reached out and pinched Sonic's cheek playfully.

"Aw, shucks, tweren't nuthin'," Sonic said in a goofy voice. "Now if guys'll excuse me, I gotta go make sure your hut is all ready to go and the _Rider_ gets put under some camo. Gotta juice!"

With a burst of speed and wind that left the bounty hunters' fur ruffled, he was gone again. Liz carefully smoothed her hair down as they climbed the few steps up to the door of the hut, then tried to smooth Nack's down as he knocked. Her attempts were in vain, however, as he purposefully tried to shift away and the fur she _did_ manage to push down simply jumped back up again.

"When was the last time you combed your fur, old man?" she asked as a soft voice from inside the hut called for them to come in.

"What month is it?" Nack asked, pushing the door open and snickering.

While the outside of Sally's hut was as plain and unadorned as the rest of the buildings in Knothole Village, the inside was anything but typical. Nack had always thought that the methodical and linear-thinking that Sally typically displayed would have led to her having an entirely clean, neat, and organized domicile. Much to his surprise the first time he and Liz had been invited in a year or two before, however, the entire place was in complete disarray.

Almost every single bit of the hut's walls were covered in computer printouts, maps, charts, surveillance photos, and hundreds of other pieces of hard copy, making it appear as if Sally thought of the world as her personal bulletin board. The floor was piled up here and there with plastiboard boxes containing only the Walkers knew what. Every available flat surface that was not littered with half-eaten foodpacks and empty wrappers had either stacks of printouts or various computer parts and electronics equipment.

Nack liked it. Being in Sally's hut often reminded him of being back in MobiaNet with his old surrogate family, the Hacker-Dackers. Sometimes during their infrequent visits to Knothole, he and Liz would sit in the hut with Sally and watch her work on her computers, diagrams, and mission plans, much like he used to sit and watch one of the dackers work on the hundreds of projects they had going at any given time.

"Liz!" Sally exclaimed when the two of them stepped inside. She immediately stood up, dropping a micro-motherboard she had been soldering and stepping out from around her worktable. Her metal legs thumped on the wooden floor as she walked towards them.

"How's it goin', Sally Girl?" Liz asked, running over to embrace her friend.

Nack smiled as the two young women talked. One of the reasons he liked coming to Knothole every once in a while was the fast friendship that Liz and Sally had struck up. The two of them had bonded almost from their first meeting, and the relationship had grown by leaps and bounds ever since. Nack was happy to see his daughter making friends, especially ones of such high caliber as the Princess.

"Nack, it's good to see you," Sally said warmly as she stepped over to hug him as well. One robotic hand and one hand of flesh and bone wrapped around his back and squeezed.

"You too, Your Highness," he said. "I hope we're not interrupting anything . . . "

"No, no, not at all," Sally reassured him. She walked back over to the part she had been working on and set it in a pile off to the side, apparently using some type of sorting method among the mess that only she could comprehend. "It's just a little project I've been fiddling with to keep off the tension from our upcoming mission."

"Right, right," said Nack. "Speaking of which . . . your message to us said this wasn't exactly to be just a courtesy call, neh?"

Sally nodded. "Direct and to the point as always, Mr. Weasel," she said. "We do, in fact, have a little job to do in Robotropolis tomorrow, and we'd like to hire on the two of you to help us."

"Chances of success?" Liz asked.

"Unknown at this time, unfortunately," Sally replied. "Perhaps I should just detail the situation and let you decide on your own. A week ago, sensors we planted in Robotropolis began to pick up an anomalous energy signature coming from the old Western Commercial Center."

"The WCC?" Liz mused. "That's . . . what? A factory center now, isn't it?"

"For the most part, yes," Sally confirmed. "There are currently one StealthBot and four SWATbot factories operating there, as well as a small 'bot-repair outlet and workerbot storage facility. There's also a large warehouse, however, supposedly unconverted by Robotnik."

Nack snapped his fingers. "The old Gunderson warehouse," he said. "Huh. I used to have a garage in the sewers underneath it. Wonder if it's still there . . . "

Sally raised her eyebrows slightly and said, "If it is, that could be a great help to us. In any case, the AES came from inside the warehouse. We're not entirely sure what could be causing it . . . it doesn't conform to any standard fusion or electrical emissions."

"Radiation levels?"

"Well within tolerable limits," Sally shrugged. "You'd be more likely to catch rad-poisoning from listening to your radio than standing next to whatever this is. Really, besides the non-conformity, there's nothing too spectacular about this AES."

"It could be a trap," said Liz.

"Anything could be a trap," Nack said, stroking his chin. "But if the FF doesn't do anything and it's the real deal, then-"

"-they'd be just as screwed as if they had gone in and it _was_ a trap," she finished for him. "I know, Da. Just running the more obvious options first."

"We've decided to go in anyway, in any case," the Princess said. "If it's really something Robotnik's working on, we'll get rid of it. If it's nothing, we come back, no problem. If it's a trap, we deal with it. It's because of the high degree of uncertainty in this situation, however, that led to us calling the two of you in. You'll be paid in full regardless of the mission's outcome."

Father and daughter glanced at each other. Nack shrugged and waved two fingers in the air, giving Liz leave to make the call. "How much?" she asked.

Sally named a figure in kilograms of food. Liz quoted a higher number of kilograms and added a request for several different pieces of equipment. Sally slightly upped the amount of food and acquiesced to one piece of equipment. The bartering continued in this manner as they all worked on finding an equitable amount of compensation for the Weasels' services. Throughout it all, even though they were best of friends, all three Mobians worked out the details of the payment like true professionals. They all knew there was a time for friendship and a time for business partnership and that neither respective time could have anything to do with the other.

"Deal," Sally said once they'd reached a fair compromise. She placed her organic left hand in Liz's and shook once, tautly, then stepped back and smiled. "The full mission briefing will take place in half an hour. Thanks for joining us."

"Not a problem, Sal Gal," Nack said. "Always glad to do a job with people who actually _like_ us, neh?"

* * *

The Robotropolis Sprawl sat, as it had for the past nine years, like the decaying carcass of a once noble beast. SWATbots and other automatons made they way through the streets like maggots chewing away at that corpse, a colony of vicious parasites. They guarded the factories that created more of their kind, ran various projects for their insidious leader, and kept watch for any organic intruders.

They weren't doing a spectacular job at the last assignment as usual, Nack reflected as he casually flicked his cigarette. The ashes, suddenly dislodged from the cigarette's burning end, floated gently down the side of the building Nack was standing on and softly alighted on a SWATbot's shoulder. The menacing black robot didn't even turn its dome-shaped head to look . . . there was far too much in the way of dust and grime falling all around for it to bother worrying about it.

"I thought Liz got you stop smoking those things," Rotor Walrus said as he scanned the streets with a set of electronic binoculars.

"Liz ain't here, is she?" the bounty hunter returned. He took another quick drag, finishing the hand-rolled cigarette off, then pulled another from his pocket and lit it with his windproof lighter. "Gotta get as many in as I can before she makes me quit again, neh?"

Rotor laughed. "If you say so," he said with a shrug. He continued scanning the streets until the light sound of crunching gravel caused him to jump. "Nack, wha-"

A glance at Nack's still relaxed stance allayed the walrus' sudden fears. "S'just the Princess," the bounty hunter said, never taking his eyes off the SWATbots below. "She took a slight misstep getting up on the roof. No worries."

Rotor nodded and went back to his binoculars. Within just a few moment, Princess Sally had crossed the gravel-covered roof and strode up to Nack. "Liz and Sonic are in position at the warehouse," she said. "Is Antoine ready to go?"

"I haven't seen him yet, Sally," said Rotor. "I wish he'd hurry, though . . . these things are making my eyelids sweaty."

Now that Sally was there to be an extra set of eyes, Nack took a few moments to look up at the sky while they waited. Though he knew that probably no one else would agree with him, from time to time he thought the sky over Robotropolis held a kind of beauty in the way the building and street lights bounced off the cloud cover. It was especially pretty now at nighttime without the sun in the back, spoiling the effect. The fact that it was heavy industrial pollution instead of natural clouds didn't really help, either, but at least Nack could temporarily forget that part.

He hated being separated from Liz, even for this brief amount of time. He began to wonder if she was looking up at the underlit clouds like he was . . .

"There he is," Rotor said, breaking through the weasel's reverie. It looks like he's already planted the bomb, and he's making a break for the rendezvous point." He pulled the binocs from his eyes and stashed them in one of his pouches. "I guess that's my cue to head out, too. You guys be careful out there."

"Always am, Gears," said Nack.

Sally squeezed the walrus' shoulder gently. "Thanks, Rotor," she said, "and good luck with the other bomb."

Rotor nodded, then made his way to the fire escape the Princess had come up a short time before. Nack flicked the last of his cigarette over the side of the roof then joined Sally a bit further down the edge. The seconds ticked by painfully slow until, finally, the bright cloud of an explosion filled the sky in a nearby section of the city. Sally and Nack waiting until the 'bots below had cleared the area to go check on the disturbance, then the bounty hunter leapt up into the Princess' robotic arm.

Nack certainly didn't envy Sally's roboticized limbs, but he did sometimes wish he was able to copy the amazing leaps they enabled her to make. They fairly flew over the street and landed on a rooftop on the other side. Without missing a beat, Sally hit the roof running, then jumped across yet another street to land on the rooftop of the old Gunderson warehouse.

If they hadn't cleared the area of SWATbots earlier, an approach from this direction would have been completely impossible without being sited. Rotor had gone to set up another bomb to continue keeping the 'bots distracted so they could get back out later. Liz and Sonic had been able to make it to the other side without any problems, but Sally had wanted to tackle the warehouse from as many angles as possible and make it in and out without being noticed at all.

Having reached their destination, Sally set Nack down and they both started rigging up rappelling lines to the harnesses strapped across their bodies. As he readied himself for the trip down to street level, Nack sighed quietly to himself. Several years ago, he would have been able to just climb down using the electronic climbing claws woven into the backs of his gloves. But like the majority of his irreplaceable high-tech gadgets, they had worn out with time and use. The only reminder that they had even existed was a series of lines on his gloves that were slightly darker than the fabric around them. He still had a few tricks up his sleeve, though, and he could always depend on other, more easily replaceable items.

When the two Mobians reached the street, they left the two ropes to dangle from the rooftop. By the time any 'bots came around to notice, they intended to be long gone. They creeped slowly around the edge of the building until they reached a small service entrance. Sally opened a small panel in her robotic arm, then proceeded to plug several hookups from it into the door's electronic lock. Nicole, Sally's miniature supercomputer, worked furiously to decipher the lock while Nack kept a lookout.

The lock opened with a soft click a few moments later. Sally pulled out the hookups, ran her hand down the small computer screen in her arm briefly, then said "Thank you, Nicole," softly before swinging the small panel shut.

Nack opened the door and slithered his way into the building, his ion pistol drawn and held pointing upwards. He took a second to marvel at the silence with which the Princess followed him on her metal legs, then proceeded through to the other side of the utility room that they found themselves in. Two more doors and they were finally in the main storeroom of the warehouse.

Every molecule in Nack's body suddenly froze solid when saw the giant metal monstrosity that sat in the middle of the room. His mind desperately wanted his eyes to tell it that they were hallucinating, but he knew it wasn't true. It was there, alright, as sure as the world.

They were just about to stumble into the lair of an MMRAV.

The last time Nack had seen a Massive Mobian Relocation Assault Vehicle was nearly five years ago, and the experience had almost gotten both him and his daughter stuck in the roboticizer. In fact, almost every encounter with the former combat tanks had just barely been won by the bounty hunter. Just _barely_. Nack was a strict believer in the idea that "just barely"s wore out after a while, and that one day, he would meet up with an MMRAV that he wouldn't get away from.

That worry had disappeared after he'd gotten word that the last of Robotnik's Ravers had been scrapped and accounted for, but it came back full force now that that particular rumor was proven untrue. Somehow, someway, the not-so-good doctor must have squirreled this one away for later use.

And with sudden clarity, it all came together. This was one of Dr. Robotnik's long term plans, and if Nack didn't get moving, it was going to be completely successful.

Even though it had felt like an eternity, Nack's paralysis only lasted for a second and a half. Shaking himself out of it, he turned and started to push the Princess out the door, trying to get her and himself out as fast as he possibly could. Sally frowned at him and whispered furiously, "_What? What is it?_"

"_It's a fucking **trap!**_" he whispered back, continuing to herd her out the door. She easily complied this time, trusting Nack's judgment.

Once they were back outside, he began to run around the side of the building as fast as his legs could carry him. Sally barely managed to catch up and breathlessly asked him what the hell was going on.

"It's a _Raver!_" he yelled at her over his shoulder. "The signal you picked up was bait to lure you in!"

He reached the corner of the building, skidded a few feet in a high-speed turn, then scrambled to keep his footing as he took off like a shot again. Sally almost didn't make the turn, suddenly lost in thought as the horrible ramifications of what Nack had seen washed over her. She redoubled her efforts, catching up with Nack just as he reached the next corner.

The bounty hunter skidded to a stop. Just a hundred yards away, Sonic and Liz were working on decoding the lock on the warehouse's main doors. Nack thanked the Walkers that Nicole had gotten them in so quickly, giving him a chance to warn the others about-

The sound of heavy hydraulics cut him off just as he was about to shout out to them. He was too late.

"_NO!_" he bellowed, and began to run once more. He saw that he'd gotten Liz's attention, but Sonic was staring into the warehouse with a look of utter surprise painted across his face. The surprise only lasted for a moment, however, as he immediately launched himself through the still-opening doors at super-sonic speeds.

Liz, startled by Sonic's sudden departure, turned to look inside. Her eyes went wild as she started scrambling backwards as fast as she could go. Nack's heart thudded painfully in his chest as he saw fear and confusion fight for control of his daughter's face. He needed to get to her, comfort her, but everything seemed to have slowed down, like time itself had been dipped in molasses.

He needed to get to her before something terrible happened.

A blast of laser-powered thunder ensured that he would never make it in time.

At first Nack couldn't comprehend what had just happened. He had been just about to reach the edge of the warehouse's giant front door, just about to reach Liz so he could take her to safety, when and explosion of light burst through from inside the building. He was flung backwards by the concussive forces of the explosion, deposited unceremoniously several feet back the way he had come.

Adrenaline-powered nerves of lightning forced his muscles to flex and stretch purely by instinct, causing him to flip back upright and bolt forward again. He noted with growing dismay that Liz was no longer in front of him . . . the only thing he saw was ragged chunks of metal torn from the door by the explosion and flung outward.

He was able to see inside the building now. From what he could see through the smoke and haze, it became apparent that the old rumors were true . . . all the MMRAVs had been scrapped. The metal monstrosity that was maneuvering around for another shot inside the warehouse bay was an unconverted combat tank, a remnant of the Great War, and surrounded by several old WarBots trying to wrangle in a blue blur that was trashing them left and right.

Nack turned away from the scene inside. Sonic could handle himself, the 'bots, and the tank well enough with Sally's help. He just needed to find his daughter.

A strangled cry of joy came from his throat when he saw her across the street, leaning against a brick wall. The joy was fleeting, however, when he noticed that she wasn't standing under her own power. When the tank had fired its first shot, Liz had been spared from disintegration by the warehouse doors. But now, chunks of those doors had skewered through her left arm and both legs, then further planted themselves firmly into the wall she had been tossed into.

As he approached the rabbit's form, he could see that she was still breathing, and was even trying to raise her head.

"Oh, Walkers, Oh, Liz," Nack cried out as he ran to her side. "Can you hear me, kiddo? Oh, please, Walkers, tell me you can hear me!"

Liz lifted her face to look up at her father. Dark bruises had already started to form under her eyes and a trickle of blood flowed from her nose and joined another that was dribbling from the side of her mouth.

"Oh, Da," she rasped. "Ah'm so sorry . . . "

"No, no, don't you worry," Nack started to babble. "You're gonna be okay, don't worry. We'll get you down from here, and get you back to Knothole, and they're gonna fix you up. Okay? You hear me?"

Tears began to flow down Liz's face, mingling with the blood. It was only then that Nack realized that his muzzle was streaked with tears of his own. He placed his forehead on hers and began to run his hands across her head and shoulders.

"No, Da," she said. "You get th'hell outta here . . . there ain't no savin' me this time, Da . . . just git . . . "

The weasel felt hands settle down on his shoulders, but he ignored them. At that moment, there was no Sonic or Sally or Freedom Fighters or Dr. Robotnik. There was only him and his daughter.

"You don't know what you're saying," he sobbed. "You'll be okay . . . "

"No, Da, I won't," Liz said, some strength returning to her voice. "Now go on! You got more important things t'do!"

"C'mon, Nack, we've gotta get outta here!" Sonic's voiced drifted in from a million miles away. "SWATbots are comin'!" Nack shook him off and grabbed Liz's free hand.

"Nonononono_nononono_," he chanted over and over again. "This can't happen, this won't happen, dammit, _I'm not going to leave you!_"

"Don't you get it, old man?" said Liz, shouting loudly now. "You ain't leavin' me, _I'm_ leavin' _you!_ Now _GIT!_"

Nack was so shocked by Liz's words that he didn't - _couldn't_ - move out of the way as she pulled her head back as far as it could go, then slammed her forehead full force right between his eyes.

"I love you, Da . . . now get him the hell outta here," was the last thing he heard before the world melted into blue speed lines and then, mercifully, into the inky blackness of oblivion.

* * *

For nearly seven hours since he had woken up in the Knothole infirmary, the bounty hunter had sat in the complete darkness of his hut. With practiced precision, his hands worked back and forth, cleaning his ion pistol over and over again. He didn't need to see it to do the job. He neither needed to see it, nor wanted to. He just wanted to be left alone.

Naturally, events conspired to make sure that wouldn't happen. Just a few short minutes ago, his solitude had been intruded upon by Princess Sally with the news that his daughter had been caught by the SWATbots and taken to Robotnik. The fat doctor had placed her in the roboticization chamber and had pressed the activation button himself.

Due to her extensive injuries, Liz had not survived the process.

He had not paused cleaning his pistol for even the briefest of moments when Sally had told him the news. He had simply sat, his back turned, taking the gun apart, cleaning the gun, and putting it back together. Sally, discourage by this behavior but unsure of what else to do, had simply left him. She knew it was unwise to leave him alone, but the only other person who had tried to stay with him had obviously overstayed their welcome . . . besides complete indifference, apparently the only reaction they were going to get from him was homicidal rage.

With the distraction gone, he continued his unending labor.

Destroy, clean, repair, repeat.

Destroy, clean, repair, repeat.

In the end, he wasn't sure whether it was his mind, his body, his soul, or some combination of the three that had made the final decision. Either way, the result was the same . . . he emerged from the meditative trance that he had placed himself in to find that the power connections on the ion pistol's cooling system had been switched around. He paused in his work and stared down at the barely seen outlines of the gun he had carried with him ever since he'd joined the Bounty Hunter's guild.

With a sudden flurry of movement, he snapped the gun back together and activated the power source, then set the butt of the pistol against his forehead. Just under the ceramic/plastic alloy he could hear the soft ticking of overheating circuits. It was like distant music in his ears.

And for the first time in his life, he prayed to the Ancient Walkers, asking them to take away the pain once and for all . . .

* * *

When the ion explosion dissipated, the only thing left of Nack's hut was a charred crater thirty feet in diameter.

* * *

**Tuesday, August 9  
3233 AD**

It took Nack The Weasel a few moments to remember to breathe. His heart, having skipped a few beats, jumpstarted painfully in his chest then resumed its natural rhythm. It felt almost as if his entire body was restarting piece by piece.

Once he finally felt like himself again, he slowly peeled his sweat-covered paw off of the Opal Oracle's curved surface and firmly pulled on his glove. He straightened his hat, brushed some imaginary dust off of his jacket, then looked around at the now-dimly lit ruins surrounding him.

If the way the temporary halogen lamps had nearly died out was any indication, he had been standing there with the Oracle for far longer than his former employer had. He had quite likely been there for several, several hours while the batteries ever so slowly died out. It was not a comforting thought.

With a look of almost casual indifference, he stared down at the Oracle's polished surface and absently scratched his chin.

"Why did you show me that?" he asked in a firm, level tone.

"**In this life,**" the Oracle intoned, its voice once again reverberating off the stone walls, "**there are those for whom regret is an ocean that they tread, ever trying to reach a shore that they will never see. For others, regret is a constant companion, walking beside them as they traverse the byways of life and love, happiness and hardship. And finally, for those like you, Nack, it is not even a consideration. You live your lives doing what you must do to survive, not pausing to wonder if it was the _right_ thing to do, or the _wrong_ thing to do.**

"**For some, this results in great tragedies for the planet. For others - for _you_, Nack - it gives you the ability to shape the world into something far greater. I have seen into a future that does not yet exist, a future that you will help bring about . . . and I have seen that future poisoned and destroyed because you harbor one single regret.**"

"So, you think that by showing me this paltry shadowdance, you can give me peace enough of mind to fix a bleeding future?" said Nack.

"**No,**" the Oracle replied. "**It is unfortunate that I cannot truly give you that peace. I can only show you the truth of the might-have-been that you have carried with you all these years, and hope that you can find that peace on your own. It is necessary that you do so for the sake of all that lives. For you, Nack The Weasel, regrets are not an option.**"

Nack sighed and ran a glove across his eyes. He wasn't very surprised to find tears staining the fabric when he pulled his hand back down. He stood and stared for several moments as the teardrops slowly dissolved into the glove, then looked back up at the Oracle.

"I don't suppose you could just tell me how I destroy this future of yours, neh?" he asked.

"**Doing so would change the course of that future and endanger it even further.**"

"I figured as much," he said bitterly. "Well, as much as I'd like to say that your little slideshow helped . . . I can't, 'cause it didn't. Maybe someday I'll get over it," he said as he shook his head and turned to walk away, "but not today. Catch ya later, Rocky."

"**Good journey, Nack The Weasel,**" the Oracle said to the bounty hunter's retreating form. "**It is a shame that we shall never meet again.**"

Nack hadn't realized before how heavy a presence the Opal Oracle had until it vanished suddenly from the room, slipping into yet another long, dark sleep.

* * *

**Monday, October 9  
3234 AD**

"Weasel."

Sonic T. Hedgehog, self proclaimed Fastest Thing Alive, stared Nack down with a smug smirk as they stood underneath a guard post deep in the Great Forest. Nack, for his part, simply brushed past the Freedom Fighter and stepped into the village proper.

"What's the matter, Weasel Boy?" Sonic said, not wanting to give up his quarry so easily. He followed after Nack as the bounty hunter walked along, continuing to studiously ignore him. "Lost your nerve? Not gonna call me a rodent and try to kidnap me for Robuttnik again? Ya little pansy. I hear Sal's got you up here on some kinda mission, but don't think for a second the main hedgehog's gonna let ya get away with anything! I'm gonna be on you like-"

With a sudden ferocity that caught even Sonic off-guard, Nack whirled around, grasped the hedgehog by the throat, and squeezed. Sonic gagged, then began to beat ineffectively on the weasel's wiry arm with his fists. Nack bent over Sonic, apparently intent on finishing the job and choking the life out of him, but gradually began to ease up. He finally released Sonic, throwing him to the ground.

"Stay out of my way today, Sonic," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "Just . . . stay out of my way." With that, he turned on his heel and continued on into Knothole. Sonic coughed violently, sucking in as much air as he could stand, then stood up and brushed himself off.

"Jeez . . . what bee got up in his bonnet?" the hedgehog grumbled.

* * *

The meeting with Princess Sally was brief, at least as far as Nack was concerned. While he had listened to every detail of the job she wanted him to do with one ear, the majority of his mind had been somewhere else entirely. It was all simple enough anyway . . . blah blah go to Centropolis blah blah check on the Lieutenant Project blah blah work with Centerpoint Freedom Fighters blah blah stupid bitch blah.

Once they had settled on a price for his services, Nack left Sally's hut and started to wander. His feet would take him where he needed to go, he knew. In the meantime, he continued mentally reviewing everything he had learned about . . . _her_ . . . since his meeting with the Opal Oracle.

She'd been born to a man named Taylor Rabbit, an entrepreneur that dealt especially in real estate. Most of his jobs had been contract work with the Acorn Kingdom government, finding sites for preserves, animal shelters, public parks, and the like. From a few of the scraps of information Nack had been able to piece together, it seemed that he had even taken part in choosing the location of Knothole Village.

He was a widower, and she was his only child. Because of his importance to the government, the two of them had moved from the Southern Quadrant of the Northern Ameran Territories to a house specially built for them just outside the Great Forest. Nack had visited the ruins of that house on more than one occasion, sifting through the rubble that Robotnik's war machines had left behind. The proximity to the forest explained at least one mystery that had been eating him up for a while . . . all her knowledge of the Great Forest had stemmed from her real father's outdoorsman attitude.

Unfortunately, Taylor Rabbit had died shortly before Robotnik's coup, the victim of sudden massive coronary failure. Without any other surviving family, his daughter had been taken in by royal family and cared after by the palace nanny, an elegant old lady named Rosie.

An image of that old lady staring at him across a rubble-strewn street flashed briefly through Nack's mind, causing him to frown deeply. He saw himself handing the young girl to her all those years ago . . . before, he had cursed her for looking at him that way, making him feel guilty for even considering keeping the girl. But now, having seen what would have happened had he followed that path . . .

Just as he'd expected would happen, he found himself in front of her hut. Now that he was there, he felt a chill run down his back. He'd seen her a few times since that day ten years ago, but she'd never recognized him so he hadn't pressed the issue. But now that he knew all these things about her, he couldn't help but wonder how he could stand to have her continue to look at him like a total stranger.

He didn't want this confrontation to take place. But he _needed_ it to, and that was far more important. He raised a gloved hand and rapped gently on the hut's doorframe.

"Come in," a heavily accented voice called from inside. Nack took every bit of strength and courage left in him and used it to reach forward and open the door. He stepped into the small hut, shut the door behind him, and looked up to see her glaring hatefully at him.

"Oh," Bunnie Elizabeth Rabbot said disappointedly. "It's _you_."

Pain sliced briefly through Nack's heart, making him want to turn and run. He forced himself to stay put, however, and tried his best to look straight at her.

The first thing he noticed, of course, was her roboticized limbs. He briefly wondered if she'd have rather died without them than continued living with them, but he brusquely shoved that thought aside. She was still muscular - probably from having to carry around all that hardware - but not with the wiry whipcords that his training would have gotten her. She was slightly plump as well . . . almost voluptuous in a way.

The eyes, however, as well as the ears, the fur . . . it was her, without a doubt. The same fiery determination sparkled within her, the same strong will that he had loved so very much in that other life.

"Well, what do yuh want, Nack?" she asked, refocusing his attention. "Ah ain't got all day."

He looked down at the floor and cleared his throat momentarily, then looked back up at her. "I'm . . . " he started off uncertainly, "I'm here to give you something." He took a few steps towards her, noting the cautious look that suddenly stole over her face. "I know what you're thinking," he said quickly, "and I really don't blame ya. I haven't really done this village much good. You probably wouldn't accept what I have ta give ya if I told you what it was first. Hell, you'd probably think I'd gone off my rocker, and ya might be right in thinkin' that. All I can do is ask you to trust me just this once . . . "

Before Bunnie could say a single word, Nack took a final, huge step forward . . . and gave her a hug.

Startled, she began to squirm in an attempt to get away until she realized that he really didn't mean any harm. It was just a simple embrace, nothing more and nothing less. Highly unsure of what exactly was going on, but sensing that the weasel truly did need to do this, she slowly wrapped her arms around him and hugged him back.

The two Mobians stood embracing each other for several long moments. Finally, Nack pulled back slightly, running his lips lightly across Bunnie's ear as he whispered softly into it, "Take care of yourself, Liz." Then, without another word, he snugged down his hat, turned on his heel, and left.

Several conflicting thoughts ran through Bunnie's mind, but only one managed to make it fully formed to the surface. She stared at the door he had just walked through and wondered aloud, "How the hoo-hah did he know mah middle name?"

* * *

Nack strode out into the village, intent on finding the escort that had been assigned to him for his current job. With the confrontation that he had so dreaded done and over with, he wanted to get out of Knothole as soon as Mobianly possible.

Bunnie had grown up into a fine, strong woman without his help, he could see that now. If he had kept her, he would have simply traded away her life for his own gratification, a debt that he could never have paid back. All the regret and pain was washed from his body, mind, and soul, leaving him refreshed and whole again.

Whatever it was that the Oracle had wished to prepare him for, he was as prepared as he was ever going to be.

He was Nack The Weasel.

And he had a job to do.

**END**

Roland Lowery  
esn1g(at)yahoo(dot)com

December 20, 2003


End file.
